Little Grebe

[Markus Jais]

EOS 7D, 4/500L, 1.4x, Tripod, Wimberley Head 2
ISO 800, 1/320, f5.6

I increased saturation, clarity and contrast a little in LR2. I also darkened the ice a little and applied some noice
reduction and sharpening.
I added some more sharpening with Photoshop CS4.
Is it oversharpened?

This is a crop (about 6MP from the original 18 MP).

The little fellow was turning his head constantly and as I wanted a head angle slightly towards me, I set the camera to 8fps to get a better change to get the head angle I wanted.

What do you think?
What could I have done better?

Markus

[Dan Brown]

Nice bird! I think that you may want to back off on the crop and the sharpening some. And then do some NR in the BG.

[Aidan Briggs]

Ditto Dan. I also might try to lighten the eye some. Nice exposure, HA, and low angle. The soft light is nice here.

[Steve Maxson]

I like the puffed up pose and the soft light, Markus. I would agree with Dan about the crop, sharpening, and NR. As presented, there is a lot of noise and/or jpeg artifacts - especially in the background. :)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the angle, soft light and eye contact. The bird is a bit tight in the frame for my taste. I agree that it would be even stronger with NR on the BG, it does not look oversharpened but the heavy crop is apparent as there is a lack of fine details.

[Stu Bowie]

I like the low angle, and these guys never seem to get close enough for a decent shot. Anothr vote to run some NR on the BG.

[Markus Jais]

Thanks for all your comments. This is very helpful

@Axel: Do you think the lack of details is just due to the crop or also due to the jpeg compression? I had to save it at quality setting 6 in order to get below 200K. I think a 6 MP crop should still yield much details.

Markus

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thanks for all your comments. This is very helpful

@Axel: Do you think the lack of details is just due to the crop or also due to the jpeg compression? I had to save it at quality setting 6 in order to get below 200K. I think a 6 MP crop should still yield much details.

Markus

It might be a combination of ISO and distance, 33% of the original frame is not a lot, some lack of detail would be expected at that rate. With NR applied, you can probably save it at '10'.

[Markus Jais]

It might be a combination of ISO and distance, 33% of the original frame is not a lot, some lack of detail would be expected at that rate. With NR applied, you can probably save it at '10'.

Thanks, Axel.
Just for my own education: Would there be more detail if I were closer to the bird and shot the same image without cropping with a camera that has a 6 MP sensor?
Or would there be exactly the same details as here, that is a 18 MP image cropped to 6 MP?

Markus

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thanks, Axel.
Just for my own education: Would there be more detail if I were closer to the bird and shot the same image without cropping with a camera that has a 6 MP sensor?
Or would there be exactly the same details as here, that is a 18 MP image cropped to 6 MP?

Markus

I'm not sure if there is an easy 'yes or no' answer since there are several variables such as pixel pitch, AA filter, etc. Sounds like an interesting experiment, though, in case you still have a 6MP camera such as the 10D, which had about 3000 pixels horizontally and 1.8MP/cm2.

[Markus Jais]

I'm not sure if there is an easy 'yes or no' answer since there are several variables such as pixel pitch, AA filter, etc. Sounds like an interesting experiment, though, in case you still have a 6MP camera such as the 10D, which had about 3000 pixels horizontally and 1.8MP/cm2.

Unfortunately I've sold my 10D.
I think that maybe at least with a bad lens (one that can resolve 6 MP but not 18), there really might be a difference.

Markus